Tweet This

A Chinese woman using a smartphone walks past the logos of five smartphone companies outside a smartphone shop in Shenzhen. (Photo by NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images)

Who's spending the most on gaming online? In China, the answer might just surprise you.

While male gamers have traditionally dominated the world's biggest gaming market, more and more females in China are starting to splash the cash online -- and the country's gaming powerhouses have been reaping the benefits. In recent months, games designed for a female audience have achieved unprecedented popularity, though more hardcore games are also proving popular and attracting record numbers of female players.

For example, Love and Producer, a mobile-based game developed by Suzhou-based Pape Games, has hooked legions of Chinese women mostly in their 20s. Essentially a dating simulation, players assume the role of a female TV producer tasked with saving a production company by trying to revive a hit show. In doing so, they can vie for the attention of virtual boyfriends -- the four male protagonists within the game with different traits and personalities -- along the way. Love and Producer has been downloaded a combined 55 million times from Android and the iOS App Store since its December release, becoming the second-most popular smartphone game in the country, according to ASO 100, a Beijing-based data provider. Fans have spent as much as 600 million yuan ($95 million) on the title in the past three months, as they race to buy digital items to unlock new options within the game, and go on virtual dates with their favorite in-game heart-throbs, estimated Cui Chenyu, an analyst at IHS Markit.

“The plot of this game satisfies all the fantasies about being in love,” said Du Xin, 33, a woman who works for a chemical company in Beijing and says she has spent $80 on Love and Producer. “I don’t play a lot of games, and it kind of surprised me that I actually paid for this one.”

Love and Producer isn’t the only title embraced by Chinese females: Japan’s Tabi Kaeru, or Travel Frog, has ignited Chinese social media in recent months. It topped the download charts on both Android and Apple's App Store in China -- with the majority of those players being female, according to analysts -- thanks to its simple but oddly addictive game play. You essentially help your frog along his journey by packing his backpack, picking clovers -- which act as in-game currency -- and then wait to receive photos and souvenirs from his trip.

For Liao Xuhua, analyst at Beijing-based consultancy Analysys International, Tabi Kaeru hits the mark among women because for a number of reasons: the beautiful design, the relaxing gameplay, and the sense of companionship it brings.

“For female players, it isn’t so much about winning battles or building up scores, but finding a good psychological experience,” Liao said.

A Hit-Point Co. game app Tabi Kaeru, or Travel Frog, is arranged for a photograph on a smartphone in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday, Jan. 30, 2018. (Photo by Kentaro Takahashi/Bloomberg)

For example, half of the 200 million players of Honor of Kings -- a wildly popular multiplayer battle game developed for mobile by Chinese web giant Tencent -- are female, according to Analysys International. Developers have adapted gameplay, added more female heroes that players can use in their virtual fights, and enhanced the game’s social appeal so players can share their gaming stats -- a formula that has resonated well among female gamers looking for a more nuanced experience, according to Analysys International's Liao.

“Honor of Kings is one of the few games I have tried,” said Yang Xue, 23, a female employee at a television station in the northern city of Huhehaote. “The graphics look really nice and the game has an immersive experience.”

The growing number of China’s female gamers also means there will probably be more female-oriented titles in future -- though they're more likely to come from smaller studios rather than giants like Tencent or NetEase, who want to develop games for everyone, said IHS Markit’s Cui. However, she noted that Chinese females are also starting to come to Battlegrounds, last year’s top-selling shooting game developed by South Korean studio Bluehole that Tencent is now distributing in China, as it has easier gameplay and features plenty of social interaction potential.

What's more, this growth in the number of female gamers doesn't appear to be happening at the same rate elsewhere. While females in other countries do play games -- with puzzle game Candy Crush Saga being a favorite for women in the U.S. -- they haven't flocked to mid-core or hardcore battle arena titles like Honor of Kings. According to Amsterdam-based consultancy Newzoo, puzzles are the top choice for mobile games for 48% of women surveyed in 13 countries including Canada, Belgium and the U.S., while men choose genres like strategy, sports and shooting. Globally, the ratio of women playing battle arena games on smartphones is just 32% -- much lower than the 50% for Tencent's Honor of Kings in China.

"Western countries don't have a lot of games with female-oriented designs or features that will make them pay," Cui said. "It is in Asia where companies are paying attention to this demographic. In China, there are a lot of female gamers and they have big spending potential."